D.C. mayoral candidates Muriel Bowser (D), David Catania (I) and Carol Schwartz (I) are each holding LGBT meet and greet events over the next several weeks. (Washington Blade photos of Bowser and Catania by Michael Key; photo of Schwartz by Pete Exis)

Gay Democratic activist Lane Hudson is co-hosting a Young Professionals Meet & Greet for D.C. Council member and mayoral candidate David Catania (I-At-Large) on Thursday evening, July 31.

Hudson says the event, to be held at the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund headquarters downtown, is expected to attract mostly LGBT young professionals.

The Catania meet & greet is one of a series of such events that LGBT supporters of Catania and his two leading rivals in the mayor’s race – City Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) and former Council member Carol Schwartz, Republican turned independent – are planning to host over the next two months.

Gay businessman and LGBT activist Everett Hamilton, who’s supporting Bowser, and longtime gay rights and AIDS activist Cornelius Baker, who’s backing Schwartz, said several LGBT meet & greet receptions are being planned for their respective candidates in the next several weeks.

Baker said he’s hosting a Schwartz meet & greet at his home on July 27, just days after he was to return to Washington from attending the International AIDS Conference in Australia. Hamilton said Bowser hosted a transgender community meet & greet at her own home earlier this month and several of her supporters are planning more such events for the full LGBT community in the coming weeks.

All three candidates have been longtime supporters of LGBT rights. Catania and Schwartz supporters argue that their respective candidates have been involved in LGBT issues longer than Bowser, whom most political observers consider to be the frontrunner in the race at this time.

Bowser’s LGBT supporters argue that she is younger than Schwartz and Catania and hasn’t held elective office as long as they have but nevertheless has a strong pro-LGBT record during her tenure on the Council.

Gay mayoral candidate Bruce Majors, who’s running for the Libertarian Party, says he’s been an LGBT rights advocate for many years and also has been reaching out to the LGBT community for support.

Lou Chibbaro Jr. has reported on the LGBT civil rights movement and the LGBT community for more than 30 years, beginning as a freelance writer and later as a staff reporter and currently as Senior News Reporter for the Washington Blade. He has chronicled LGBT-related developments as they have touched on a wide range of social, religious, and governmental institutions, including the White House, Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the military, local and national law enforcement agencies and the Catholic Church. Chibbaro has reported on LGBT issues and LGBT participation in local and national elections since 1976. He has covered the AIDS epidemic since it first surfaced in the early 1980s.
Follow Lou

We will be having a meet and greet, possibly in the Chastleton ball room on 16th Street at R, in early August, where we may present some additional city council candidates running in Wards 1 and 5 who were not on the primary ballot.

It's irresponsible for this news publication to diminish Bruce Majors to a footnote in this article when we at Outright Libertarians know his commitment to the cause of queer liberation to be far superior and beyond reproach of the taxmongers and police statists of the War Party. We are not nearly as single-issue driven as you believe; and the days when you could use our desire for liberation to foist the warfare industrialism of the terrorist surveillance state politicians upon us are coming to an end.

It's irresponsible for this news publication to diminish Bruce Majors to a footnote in this article when we at Outright Libertarians know his commitment to the cause of queer liberation to be far superior and beyond reproach of the taxmongers and police statists of the War Party. We are not nearly as single-issue driven as you believe; and the days when you could use our desire for liberation to foist the warfare industrialism of the terrorist surveillance state politicians upon us are coming to an end.

Even more insulting is that none of these candidates are LGBT except Bruce, yet you've gone out of your way to find token ways to make them relevant while the only genuine gay person running is completely marginalized. You failed to report his meet & greet and from the sound of the article you only very briefly even spoke with him. Talk about straight privilege!!